Human: a Song and a Savior

So, one of my guilty pleasures is the huge pop/rock band OneRepublic. I enjoyed some of their music growing up, but I never really loved them until I saw them live. That experience impressed upon me their surprising musicianship and the depth of Ryan Tedder's songwriting talent. When their most recent album, Oh My My, came out, I eventually gave in and bought it. It's not my usual style, featuring quite a bit of dance/pop tunes, but I actually enjoyed it very much.

One song especially interested me, track 11 entitled "Human." OneRepublic is no stranger to songs with spiritual/religious content, but their last few albums seem to be demonstrating a cooling of their religious zeal. This song demonstrates both their continued religiosity and the ambiguity thereof, as the lyrics show a belief in God but a reluctance to define much about who He is or what He requires of us.

Analyzing the spiritual state of Ryan Tedder is not my goal here today. What I really want to note is how he accidentally stumbled across the profundity of the hypostatic union of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The chorus features God asking, "How does it feel to be human/If I could for one day I just might do it." The rest of the song expresses, perhaps in a humanistic way, the unexpected benefits of frailty and vulnerability. Here's the thing: God did become a human! Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus, "though he was in the form of God...emptied himself by...being born in the likeness of men." Imagine that! He, whose image we bear, humbled Himself and bore our image!

We have to be careful when discussing the details of the Trinity, but we should never fail to marvel at the fact that the Second Person of the Trinity (as opposed to the Father and the Spirit) walked on the face of this Earth! God, in a sense, experienced what it was to be human! The author of Hebrews draws comfort from this fact, noting that our Savior "was made like his brothers in every respect" so that He could "sympathize with our weaknesses." Jesus was tired. Jesus was hungry. Jesus Christ, the giver of the Law, was tempted! How unfathomable! You can make arguments about only the human nature of Jesus experiencing these things, but at some point we simply have to confess the limitations of systematic theology and resort to praising God. Paul expressed it this way in 1 Timothy 3:16:

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

Paul's consideration of the Person and Work of Christ leaves him with nothing else to do but to proclaim the wonders of this mystery. Theologians have thrown many gallons of ink at the inner workings of the Trinity and the hypostatic union (the union of two natures in Christ's person), but they have to yet to (and never will) plumb the depths of that mystery. We can and should observe and categorize what we find revealed in Scripture in this regard, but we will never truly be able to define how God and man (two natures) coexist in the person (singular) of Jesus Christ. I like how Bruce Shelley put it:

The fourth- and fifth-century debates about the meaning of the incarnation were not aimed at an explanation of Christ. These Christians knew that Jesus Christ defies explanation because he fits no class. He is unique. The great merit of the creeds is that they left the mystery intact.

I don't know what Ryan Tedder believes. I don't know if he holds to the traditional doctrines of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ, but he, perhaps unintentionally, echoed a profound Biblical truth. God, the transcendent and wholly-other God, came to the Earth in the form of the God-man, the One we call Jesus Christ. That God-man lived, suffered, and died. None of this was because God owed us a debt or due to any sort of merit we might have, but was in every way because of God's love and grace. How does it feel to be human? God knows.

"Father, Forgive Them"

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Forgiveness is hard. Forgiveness is really, really hard. It’s difficult to forgive others who have genuinely harmed or offended us. It’s easy to say , “I forgive you,” but it’s extremely difficult to feel it–to make peace in our hearts with the injustices that others have perpetrated against us. It just doesn’t feel right. Sin should be punished! Wrongs should be righted! Right?! It’s difficult to forgive others when they ask for it. It’s even more difficult to forgive them when they haven’t asked for it–when they don’t even recognize what they’ve done to hurt us. As our Savior hung upon His Cross, He asked the Father to forgive those nearby–those who were unwittingly contributing to the greatest injustice in the history of the world. These thieves, soldiers, and standers-by had no idea what was happening. They had no idea that the jealousy of the Jews had placed Christ on that Cross...

The Real Presence & Paedocommunion: A Deeper Rift Between Reformed Churches

You're going back to Rome! Theological disagreements within the Reformed world, especially those of the last half century, often devolve into these sorts of accusations. As controversialists like Doug Wilson and Peter Leithart began to break away from the larger conservative Presbyterian and Reformed denominations, it became clear that the rift was deeper than semantics and systematic minutiae. Much like the Reformation four centuries before, the Table was a primary point of conflict. What does it mean? Who may partake? What do we call it? These questions, along with a few more, divided Reformed brethren as the physical elements of our religion reflected deeper conflicts. Good men began to understand that the problem wasn't just in our logos, but in our pathos and ethos, as well. Paedocommunion (hereafter PC) has been one of the hottest points of contention. PC has always been normal to me as I grew up with it. I underst...

"The More Things Change..." or "Joe Biden Doing Joe Biden Things"

1 Samuel 2 relates the story of Eli, the well-meaning high priest whose only flaw (apparently) was his refusal to discipline his sons. These sons, described as worthless men , utilized their position to abuse the people and indulge their lusts with impunity. Eli's dereliction of duty brought his otherwise noble career in service to God's house to an ignominious end. There are, of course, important differences between Eli and Joe Biden. Joe Biden is not a religious leader (though he is a practicing Roman Catholic ), nor would I consider his record to be otherwise spotless. However, similarly to Eli, Biden's pardoning of his own worthless son, Hunter, will prove to be his legacy. His long (and I mean loooong) career in politics will likely be overshadowed, even in the eyes of those who previously respected him, by this one shameless act. By pardoning his son despite promising not to, Biden has yet again demonstrate...

Always Reforming

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